mrsv41605

Thanks for the great review and congratulations on your beautiful little boy!  I've been reading your reviews for years, and you were a big help (without even knowing it! LOL) for planning our cruise out of New Orleans, your Mediterranean cruise, and your Paris and London trip.  

We cruised on Panorama last April, and the terminal experience was chaotic and ill-planned for embark and debark.  Same issues you had -- traffic at the port, chaos around the terminal, no where to sit, difficulty getting a ride out of there. Do better Carnival!! Ridiculous really, but the cruise itself and the ports were awesome.  

I love to wear the Carnival robe after a shower, but I turn it inside-out so the softer side is against my skin and the rougher side is out.  Feels much better, especially if you get a little sunburned.

Thanks so much for doing this review.  It got me through the last few weeks before my Dream cruise on April 14!  We also did the Cajun Pride tour with Captain Danny when the tour I originally booked was canceled, and the St. Louis Cemetery tour the morning of the cruise, both based on your review.

Looking forward to reading your other reviews!  Happy traveling!

We did exactly that type of tour last April.  When you get off the ship, go through the port shopping area to the taxi area.  There are a bunch of pre-set taxi tours that include tour, with stops at shopping areas and beaches.  There are large signs with your options on them. The more people that get in the van, the cheaper it is per person.  

We went to two shopping areas, and to Maho Beach and Orient Beach, and several scenic overlook areas.  We were at Maho for 1.5 hours, long enough to eat, swim, and see a jumbo jet land.  Another passenger in our taxi was over 30 minutes late returning to the taxi at the Marigot shopping stop, and that cut short our Orient Beach time, but there is not much there anymore, which is sad to see.

I just checked my travel journal--we paid $25 per person, for the Yellow Tour, eight people in the van. 

Thanks so much for the info!  I had my cemetery tour booked with another company, but I just cancelled and rebooked with Free Tours by Foot.  We are staying at the Courtyard/Marriott Iberville so the FTBF meeting location is actually closer to our hotel. My DH likes to be the first one at the port, but I am not going to miss touring this cemetery!  We are platinum, so I think we can pretty much get there anytime, but I did choose 11:30 to 12 for check in appointment, and it looks like that is a good timeframe for doing this tour as well.  The weekend we are there is also French Quarter Fest, but I'm not going to stress over the traffic.  I'll leave that to DH!  Looking forward to your thoughts on the Dream.  We have been on her once before in 2010 with a large group of family.  

Great review!  We are doing a plantation/swamp tour Saturday morning before cruise day as well.  I am curious as to the timing of your cemetery tour--I have one booked at 9:30 am on embark day, and my DH is flipping out about getting to the ship.  Is it truly an hour tour, or does it go over?  What time did you get to the ship?  

Great review so far, eager to read more!  Thanks for doing this review--we are going on Dream April 14 (different itinerary though), and doing very similar NOLA activities leading up to the cruise. 

We learned something similar last year.  DH and I were up near the Fascination slides, taking pics of the whale tale and St. Maarten, using my little photography sphere.  After about two seconds of holding it while I took a pic, DH started jumping and yelling and juggling the glass ball.  I thought he got stung by a bee.  But no, the sphere was magnifying the sun and burning his fingers!  Lesson learned!

I got a good photo though!

My husband once laid out a pair of his jeans, stuffed with towels, about half under the bed.  Then he arranged his sneakers face down near the cuffs, so it looked like he had crawled under the bed and got stuck.  I walked in and spoiled his joke, but we left it for the steward, and lurked in my sister's room next door, to make sure he didn't freak out when he went in to turn down our room.  He didn't freak out--he thought it was the funniest thing he had ever seen.  He brought his assistants over to see it, and I think they even took pictures.

Taking this cruise in a few weeks--thanks for sharing your with us!

I will check those out!  Thank you!

We are staying in New Orleans April 12-14 before we get on our cruise.  We will be staying in/near the French Quarter ( Courtyard Marriott Iberville), and I'm looking around for some places to visit for our two days and nights.  I just learned that the Hop On/Hop Off tours, which we had planned for Saturday, are not running due to the French Quarter Fest that is going on that weekend.  We definitely want to see the Garden District, some of the cemetaries, and of course the French Quarter.  We now understand that there will be many, many more people in the French Quarter those days.  

Would love some information on things we should plan to do (as we have never been to New Orleans).  Any recommendations? Has anyone been during French Quarter Fest?  Any tips for getting around during festival times?  Thanks in advance for any help you can give!!

I did the same cruise and itinerary last April.  Love reading this and reliving the adventure!  Thanks for sharing!

We had a table for two last month on Fascination in the Imagination dining room. There are not many of them, but they do have a few.

Do you remember what the code was? The one I found only brings it down to $81.00. TIA

Jeez, I don't remember exactly--I know it was something like costco20, and it was for 20% off the cost of each ticket. This was in January or February, so it might have changed since then. Sorry, I even looked on my confirmation email and it's not listed there.

What did you do in the ports? Any recommendations?

For St. Thomas, which we have been to several times, this time we chose the St. John Trunk Bay Snorkel excursion through Carnival ($79 pp). We chose to go through Carnival because it is a bit of a distance and we wanted to be sure to make it back to the ship by 4:30! The trip was not crowded at all, the boat ride over and back was fun and informative. Once on St. John, they take you directly to Trunk Bay. Snorkel gear is included, although we had our own. Trunk Bay does have restrooms and showers, but the food concession facilities are not rebuilt yet. The ferry boat was pretty big and did have all kinds of drinks (including booze), hot dogs, and snacks for sale. It was a great day, the snorkeling was really good, and Trunk Bay is just gorgeous.

On Barbados we took a taxi to the Boatyard ($4 pp), and once you get there they give you a wristband for the day which gets you two lounge chairs, one shared umbrella, one shared table, one rum drink each, and a boat ride out to the shipwreck to snorkel and maybe see turtles. Also includes your ride back to the port, with taxis leaving the Boatyard every 15 minutes or so. Wristbands were $20 pp. We snorkeled but did not see any turtles. The facility does have a dock with a rope swing and some other climbing and trampoline type toys out in the water. There are lockers on site if you are nervous about leaving your stuff while you go out to the shipwreck. Also, there is a full service bar and kitchen, and the food and drinks were pretty good and reasonable prices. We had a lot of fun here!

On St. Lucia we had pre-booked with Cosol Tours to do the full day tour, which included a visit to a banana plantation, locally prepared breakfast, scenic stops, a boat ride over to Jalousie Beach between the Pitons where there is great snorkeling, then back on the boat back to our van, up to the volcano, a dip in the mud bath (very cool, but HOT water!), over to a waterfall (cold water!), back through the rain forest for a lunch of warm bread and cheese, and then back to the port. Lots of driving on hairpin curves! The tour was $75 per person and included breakfast, lunch, and soda/water/beer/ rum punch. Was well worth it.

On St. Kitts, we booked a private excursion through shore excursion group dot com for $69 per person (Google the Costco coupon). The day included a catamaran ride over to Nevis, a tour of the island, and then to the beach where lunch was included and we had almost 2 hours to swim. Lunch was jerk chicken, fish, or a veggie wrap, and more rum punch. The beach did have lounge chairs and umbrellas included as well. The boat ride over and back also included plenty of free drinks. The boat ride was a little wild, with lots of sea spray and I loved it!

St. Maarten, we decided to do an island tour since we knew it had been badly devastated by Hurricane Irma. We fell in with 6 other cruise passengers and got in a taxi. We circled the island, did scenic stops, Maho Beach, Marigot market area, and Orient Beach. The damage is very sad to see. The Dutch side is recovering more quickly than the French side. All in all, the tour was supposed to be 3 hours but was actually 4 1/2 hours, and was $25 per person. Not a great adventure, but we wanted to see our favorite island and buy things here and there to do our little part for the economy.

We just got off the Fascination this past Sunday, and we had an absolutely fantastic time. I loved being on a smaller ship! We thought the ship was pretty, kept very clean, and we had an aft balcony. We ate in the MDR every night, and found it very good. We did eat breakfast from room service, buffet, and main dining, and also found those all very good. We had room service lunch several times, including the $$ pizza and wings, again very very good and not expensive at all. The ports are awesome, although St. Maarten is not recovering from last hurricane season as quickly as the other ports.

Any questions, just ask!

We will be on Barbados in April, and will be visiting one of the beaches that offers the turtle excursion. My question is about what people do with their "stuff" when they go out on the boat to see the turtles. I mean my beach bags, towels, etc. I know we will pay for chairs and umbrella (it is just DH and I), but is it safe to leave (replaceable) stuff on the loungers while we are on the boat, like towels and sunscreen? Are there lockers to use instead? Is the boat ride dry enough to bring my DSLR camera and iPhone in a bag and leave on the boat while we snorkel?

Usually we have more people with us, and typically my mother is happy to stay behind with our stuff, but it is just DH and I this time, and we would like to snorkel together.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

We have been cruising with Carnival just about every April since 2005. My husband badly misses the steak sandwiches he used to get from the hamburger/hot dog grill at the back of the Lido deck.

Worked for me! Thanks!!

Thanks!